Great topic! It gives me a chance to tell you about two
places in Ontario that you should see.

The first is on Manitoulin Is., the biggest freshwater
island in the world. The attraction is the "Mounted Animal
Nature Trail" and I first heard about it in a humourous song
by the Arrogant Worms, a Canadian singing group. You can
read about it here: http://www.gordonspark.com/hiking.html

As you can guess from the song title, all the animals on the
trail are stuffed (except the crow).

The other place, in Kirkfield, Ontario, is a group of quite
wonderful wood carvings. I came across it as I was driving
through Kirkfield and was intrigued by the carved bears on
the front lawn of the inn. Since I like wood carving, I
stopped for a closer look. Little did I imagine that there
were many more all through the grounds. The report is here,
but I've quoted it below:
www.parl.gc.ca/english/hansard/127_97-02-11/127SM1E.html

"Mr. John O'Reilly (Victoria-Haliburton, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I rise today to inform the House of one example of turning
disaster into success. In Kirkfield, Ontario the Sir William
Mackenzie Inn is doing just that. A tornado in 1995 wiped
out many mature trees across the 13 acres of land. Instead
of this devastating the land of the inn, it gave the owners
an idea. On June 22, 1996 the inn decided to have a wood
carving contest using chainsaws. The inn awarded free
accommodation, great prizes and lots of media coverage.

Once destroyed trees turned into works of art. One carving
resembled a moose in the forest, while another resembled
mother nature. The winner, "Cougar on the Rocks", by Peter
Turrell was spectacular.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate Joan and Paul
Scott for turning a near business closing incident into a
huge success."